Thoughts of a Snake
by ilanitaliaXD
Summary: One shot. Snippets of Nagisa's life until the revelation of Koro-sensei's past so obviously spoilers until chapter 143-ish. warnings of emotional and physical abuse. sad and depressing thoughts. update: mentions of the flashback from Stage Time (chapter 147) PM or review about moments you want me to write about. enjoy


Nagisa loves his mother. He really does. Even when she pulls his hair if he questions her plans for him. Even when she forces him into dresses. Even when she calls him her little daughter. _Even_ _when he looks in the mirror each morning and wonders if he really is a man or simply a doll that just happens to possess man parts._

He loves her since she cares about him. She loves him. Perhaps in her slightly delusional way, but she does.

The times when she smiles at him like there isn't anything more perfect then him and it makes his tense chest loosen up. The times when she gives him a long hug when he did well in a test, warming up his aching heart. Every breakfast she prepares him makes him question if all her fits are really hallucinations his father's absence conjured.

But he knows. He knows that no matter how good some days are – others will be as bad and he must be wary of them. He must prepare for them. He must avoid them.

 _I must always be one step ahead…_

* * *

And so his ability to read people blossoms.

The way eyebrows furrow. The way eyes glint dangerously. The way faces darken as if a cloud was passing by. The way bodies stiffen, ready to strike. _The way bloodlust bubbles underneath the skin._

He must catalog all emotions and learn to react to them in a way that would secure his survival.

 _I must survive…_

* * *

He looks like a ghost, he decides when his eyes glimpsed upon his figure on a passing mirror. His eyes are hollow and his skin pale white. Nothing else really indicates a weary soul and frayed nerves so he leaves it at that. No reason for anyone to pity him since there is nothing to pity.

 _I am surviving..._

* * *

He is a very unassuming boy, he knows that. He made sure of that.

But still...

Why? Why does he wonder how would it feel to have friends? Real friends to hang out after school, to confide with and perhaps even talk about his favorite superhero comic. It seems that his heart was still trying to thaw itself and he doesn't know if it is a good thing—

"Hey, Oono-sensei, teach me this." His attention snaps to the teacher's desk where a red haired boy leans over it, hands buried in pockets. The teacher seems to be in shock but the words were lost over his head as he drowns in his jealousy.

Or is it admiration? The redhead, Akabane Karma is the smartest kid in the class, easily finishing the assignments and even going as far as going through higher-level material.

The thing is that Akabane Karma is one of those people who never cared for others' opinion, preferring to do whatever he felt like at the moment. He isn't scared of anything and for some reason that had placed the redhead on a pedestal for the doll that he is.

He notices long blue hair falling in front of his face and sighs, looking back at his paper. He is jealous of the boy who is free and able yet he admires the strong boy who seems to have it all.

 _I wish I could be like him..._

* * *

He was reading the current article about the movie, wondering if he should bother go watch it since it _was_ his favorite comic when he senses a familiar boy hover over him, gold eyes reading his magazine so he subtly stretches the paper wider, letting him read it better.

"What? Really? He's gonna be the director for Sonic Ninja?! Awesome!" Akabane Karma exclaimes behind him, childish excitement pouring out of him as he leans closer and even reaching out to hold the page better.

He doesn't know how to feel about the sudden closeness that wasn't offensive or intruding. But he hopes that Akabane Karma doesn't notice his little unwarranted flinch when the redhead reached out.

"Let's go watch it, Shiota!"

Eh? He blinks and looks up in surprise before the words sunk in and suddenly his chest was exploding with warmth, heart burning as if need to show him that he is indeed alive. His lips curve up into his most genuine smile he had given in years, eyes closing so Akabane Karma won't see his burning tears.

"Sure!"

 _Does it means... I have a friend?_

* * *

He sits in the movie theater with Karma sitting on his left, golden eyes wide and curious and his heart swells at the sight.

He... he has a friend... Karma had chosen him to be his friend despite the fact that they are on two ends of the class and never spoke to one another up until that day.

"You okay, Nagisa?" He jumps at the name and give the redhead a long stare. Karma gives him a cheeky grin, "What? We're friends, no?"

His lips curve up again despite his mental struggle between fear and hope. "So how to call you, Akabane-san?"

"Just Karma, I hate formality." He has to laugh at that. It fits that free spirit so much but it already gave him a new strength so who cares.

"Okay... Karma."

The redhead nods. "Good." Then he place a hand on his head and force him to face the screen, either not noticing or not commenting on the his flinch and widened eyes. "Now watch the movie, I need you to confirm my facts later, little one."

"Little...?" He huffs indignantly but then smiles at the pure aura radiating from the redhead so he shut down his thoughts and let the background fade into colorful pictures and epic music.

 _I have a friend..._

* * *

The first time he learns about his bloodlust is on a really, really bad day.

His mother was waiting for him by the table that day. Her posture stiff. Fingernails tapping on the wooden surface loudly, grating on his nerves. He doesn't know what had inspired his mother's bad mood, but the tension rolling off his mother is enough of an indication that he is in trouble.

He bites down an anxious whimper and places his school bag and shoes in their right places before he enters the house, trying to prolong his walk to the kitchen.

"Nagisa…" Shiota Hiromi looks up with blank black eyes, her black hair limp and dark circles under her eyes. His hand twitches, instinctively wanting to curl into a fist but he won't let his mother see him scared. He won't do that to her. Even when he can see the lisps of fire licking his mother's eyes.

"Yes, mother?" He asks politely and sits across the table. Please let it be simply about his grades. Please let it be simply about his grades. _Please…_

"I've heard you have been hanging around with one of the more violent kids in your class," She starts and he feels his heart freeze.

She is taking about Karma.

 _No..._

"Mothe—"

"I've also heard of you being spotted next to fights. I know he has good grades but his actions and reputation is going to weigh you down in the future," She doesn't let him slip in a word. "He is doomed to soon be suspended and I don't want his reputation to move onto you. Your future is already questioned. You'll be destroyed!"

 _Please don't make me, Mother…_

"I want you to make it clear to your friends that you are nothing like that thug—"

 _No, please, he is my only friend…_

"—or cut all ties with him," She finishes and his heart is so frozen he feels numbness take hold of his limbs. He can't move. He can't think. _He can't. He can't. He can't. He can't_.

 _Why!? Why me!?_

At that moment his eyes grow hazy and all he could see is a deranged woman who doesn't think of his safety but only of his success. A woman who uses him simply to fix all the mistakes she had made. A woman who doesn't see him as a human being, but rather as a doll.

He needs to get away. He has to get away from this suffocating air. He can't breath. _He can't breath. He can't breath. He can't breath._

"Where are you going?" His mother shouts and his body flinch, already trying to seem as small as possible.

Before he could think, his mouth opens up, "I'm going to meet up with Karma."

Before she could connect the dots, he rushes out of the house, barely remembering to take his shoes.

 _Help me…_

* * *

He was walking for an hour when he bumped into three highschool students. He looked up, past his blue bangs and saw menacing grins on their faces and knew that they were looking for easy picking.

Like him.

 _Not now…_

"Oi, what a little runt like you is doing so late outside?" The shortest student comments, amusement dancing in his eyes and aura shining dangerously. He takes a step back, eyes mapping the place for escape routes.

He is really not in the mood for them.

"Oi, I'm talking to you, runt!" He felt a hand grab his collar and a face is shoved into his sight.

The highschool student regarded him for a second before snorting and using his free hand to clutch a handful of blue hair, causing him to winch at the pulling. "Oh? When I look closer, you look like a girl," The older student laughs. "Such pretty blue hair."

He is not a girl.

"Well, never thought of having fun, but you seem cute enough. Hey, want to learn about fun?"

He is not a girl!

"I'm not a girl," He mumbles and then feels his hair being released. Maybe they got bored with him? But then he feels a hand on his hip and his eyes widened.

"Well, we can always check out, no?" The student cackles and his hand inches closer to his private place. "Such a submissive bitch… come to daddy."

That did it. He felt all of his frustration, his anger, his shame, his anxiousness, everything burst out of his body in an explosion.

 _I really want to kill you right now._

The student's eyes widened and the hands released him. Surprisingly, he managed to stay on his feet and his gaze on the trio. The frightened looks and the whimpering coming out of shaky lips made him feel dizzy with an unfamiliar feeling.

It thawed his frozen heart to the point it was racing so fast he feared he was having a heart attack. His blood felt hotter and his body buzzed with excitement.

His lips unconsciously curled into a sweet innocent smile and his face softened as he regarded the shivering trio. He took a step forward and they hastily took one back.

"Why are you running away?" He asked sickeningly sweetly, almost scaring himself. "Didn't you want to have fun with me?" He tilted his head cutely as if he was inviting them, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on the highschool students since they turned on their heels and fled, crying and wailing about snakes and monsters.

He watched them disappear and raised his hands to inspect them, his smile widening in a slight crazed way.

It felt exhilarating. Is this what Karma feels when he fights? Can he stand on the same stage as his friend now?

Suddenly, all air was knocked out of him and he fell on his knees, the stone scratching his skin. He regarded with blank eyes the blood seeps out of his ripped pants. His body is really weak, who is he kidding? He is just a normal kid. He is nothing like Karma and he won't ever be.

He suddenly realizes; His mother doesn't even need to ask him to cut ties with Karma since the redhead was doing the job for her. It has been a week since they hung out last, he recalls.

He was alone.

He was nothing. Or at least nothing special. He only now discovered a new feeling and it's already losing its charm.

Why does he even exist? Is his existence simply to provide his mother an outlet for her derange needs?

He needs something. A purpose. He needs someone to need _him_ , not a doll. _Nagisa._

But first, he has to grow stronger. If not in combat, then in the subtle arts.

 _I'll be the one that no one notices until the last minute. The one whom secures success for my team without anyone knowing better._

 _I'll be the one who hides in the shadows. The one masking his real intent and blends into the darkness._

 _I'll be the phantom._

* * *

He loves his mother. He really does. But she doesn't love him. Not truly.

She loves the idea of a doll. She loves her daughter. She doesn't know of Nagisa's true nature and therefore can't know to love it.

His bloodlust grows every day and it becomes harder to conceal it. But he must know how to if he wishes to provide from the shadows.

Karma seems to sense something when he startles the redhead at lunch period. Some of his bloodlust slips when he reaches to poke Karma as the other searches for him.

Karma is slipping from his fingers.

It has been a month since they talked so it has been hard for him to conceal the satisfaction of seeing the mighty Karma flinch from him.

Just like those highschool students.

It is exhilarating.

He feels powerful.

"Nagisa?" Karma calls his name with a grin and he has to smile back even when he felt the snake hiss by his ear, posing to strike. He steps on the urge and simply smiles back, feigning confusion when Karma's eyes darken.

He must control his bloodlust.

From that day on he studies on different ways of hiding one's true intention behind smiles and masks. It's working and he feels somewhat better. More composed. And only then he realizes how much he had been hurting those around him with his suppressed bloodlust.

He can't let that continue so he builds a thick, sturdy steal walls between his bloodlust and the outside world. It works and the tension in the class drops.

But the levels of concentration he gives to the task of keeping his killing intent at bay proves deadly for his grades and he watches in horror as they plunge from average to rock bottom and soon he receives the dreaded slip of paper that signs his fate.

Class 3-E as in End class.

 _I'm tired…_

* * *

His mother is furious and for the first time in his life she hits him. His mother slapped him, her nails leaving scratches behind. He falls on the floor, holding his cheek in shock, eyes looking up to meet with burning eyes, fire surrounding him and cutting all precious air from his lungs. She screams and he feels his ears bleed and his body growing cold despite the inferno she swirls around them.

" ** _HOW COULD YOU!?_** " She roars and flames swallows her image, roasting his snake skin, vaporizing his venom. Rendering him lifeless, defenseless. He is back to the doll he is.

 _Please stop…_

* * *

The moon is mostly destroyed.

He holds back a chuckle.

How ironic. The one that lets itself plunge into the shadows was the one destroyed. Kind of feels like the current him. Barely keeping it together and trying learning how to exist with a big void inside of him.

 _I'm so empty…_

* * *

He doesn't know if he is mortified or relieved when Karasuma Tadaomi, an agent from the ministry of defense stands in front of their class and tells them with a straight face that they must kill a giant yellow octopus that plans to destroy the earth. The moon is enough proof that it is serious but his eyes track the way the octopus holds itself when it proudly evades Karasuma's attacks.

Those eyes are sad, he realizes, they do not belong to a creature that had just blown up seventy percent of the moon. His body gives a calm, calculated aura and no one with those qualities would blow up the moon simply for a proof of its power.

But whatever, perhaps he would be able to use his abilities here. He needs distraction anyway and this strange teacher might be what he needs.

 _I'll kill you._

* * *

They laugh at them and all his class is allowed to do is stand there, absorbing the laughter and the contempt radiating from the main student body, the _better_ student body.

It's the usual humiliation ceremony, but this time three teachers come as beacons of light.

He chokes when the blond assassin/English teacher smothers him in her giant boobs, but for some reason he feels... warm... loved... he is perplexed by that, Bitch-sensei merely wants information from him, but for some reason she has a... protective instinct in her that comes out when she hugs them.

He laughs when Koro-sensei reassures Karasuma-sensei of his '(im)perfect' disguise. The octopus is simply lonely but he still manages to make the students of class 3-E smile in the midst of their humiliation.

Karasuma-sensei inspects them and his eyes narrow as the school laughs at them. He feels slightly elated at that. They actually have people who care about them, who see them more than failing students. And those teachers want to protect them from the school.

His smile feels more real today.

 _Am I... only surviving now?_

* * *

He takes out the juice from the vending machine when two of his former classmates call his name. He internally sighs since he knows nothing good will come out of this. He can't even recall their names anymore.

 _Not worth his time..._

He doesn't care to listen when they ramble about how students from class 3-E should stay quiet and lower their heads. He simply looks at them with bored eyes, recalling the time those three high school students caved into his bloodlust.

 _They are just the same..._

And he was right. The chubby one ( _He doesn't bother remembering names of unworthy prey anymore..._ ) grabs his collar and sneer at him.

"I'll kill you!" That stopped his boiling bloodlust and he is left with cold amusement.

 _Kill me?_

 _Kill..._

 _Kill, huh?_

He replies with the only logical way-

He chuckles and then fixate them with his unleashed cold bloodlust filled eyes.

 _So weak..._

"And yet you look like you have never killed before."

They squeak and release him, parting to let him pass. He doesn't give them a second look as he already forgets them.

 _They are all the same..._

 _But I'm stronger..._

* * *

Takaoka reminds him of his mother and his body grows cold when he sees the shining eyes filled with evil intentions. Why is his mother invading the only safe place he made for himself. The remote class giving a relief for his bloodlust along with classmates who accept him for himself.

And now his mother comes to ruin his carefully build sanctuary. Why would she do it to him? Hasn't she done enough?

No, this is not his mother. This is a teacher worse than she would ever be. He hit Kanzaki for something his mother would only shout at him. He kneed Maehara when his mother would only pull on his hair.

This is not his mother. This is a threat that needs to be taken out.

Karasuma-sensei stands before him and hands him the knife, emotions uncertain but firm eyes meeting his eyes without hesitation. The man before him regards him as an equal. He _needs_ him.

That was enough for him to take the knife.

 _I'm finally needed..._

* * *

" **NO!** "

Explosion.

Fire.

The remedy. The precious remedy for his dying classmates is gone.

His vision turns red.

His heart is pounding loudly in his ears, only drowned by the screaming of his bursting bloodlust.

 ** _I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him._**

 ** _Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him._**

 ** _Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._** ** _Kill._**

 _ **DIE!**_

Thump.

Pain.

"Don't you get cocky, Nagisa!"

Terasaka...?

 _I'm sorry._

 _Thank you..._

* * *

"Hey, Nagisa!" He turns to see the short haired girl skip towards him with her test held up, showing a grade of 95. Her eyes sparkling and he feels his chest loosen in a forgotten way.

He smiles at Sakura as she boasts about how she took her test while shocking the bullies into bad grades, feeling so proud of that little troublemaker he almost can't breath. She is so broken and lonely and yet she let him help her and he was rewarded with such beautiful smiles and shining eyes.

Something unfamiliar swells in his chest and it takes him a moment to realize that it is what he feels when his mother smiles at him. It has been so long since his mother smiled at him he had nearly forgotten the feeling of love.

And yet that little girl manages so easily to melt his frozen heart. He wants to wrap her in a big hug but refrains from doing so, instead he ensures she understands how important it is to improve her arsenal of weapons. He can't have her return to the days of being bullied and being lonely. He won't let her sparkly eyes turn dim again. He will protect this bright smile and this quirky personality.

She asks if he will come by sometimes with an uncertain expression and he feels a lump form in his throat. He swallows it and smiles at her as he agrees. Her smile make his eyes burn and his chest squeeze painfully.

He was so happy.

Even his mother's refusal to look at him when he returns home later that doesn't dim the glow he carries with him.

That night he stares at the ceiling, warm tears rolling from his eyes as his mouth is stretched into the biggest smile he ever remembers making.

 _I'm so happy..._

* * *

It's the end of the winter holiday already.

He glimpses another mirror and barely recognizes the figure staring back at him.

This Nagisa's eyes are sparkling and his skin is healthier. His body seems sturdier and holds itself with confidence. His hair is still long, but no longer down, lifeless and useless. It is now held up in pigtails, holding a connection between him and his new friend, Kayano.

He looks… happy, content. His bloodlust is now easy to tame and he has an arsenal of new weapons and techniques.

He now thought of saving instead of harming. He has friends and comrades. He has people he trusts. Those people know him in ways his mother would never know and yet they still accepted him.

His mother finally acknowledges him. She finally smiles at him like he always wanted her to. She finally loves _him_. Not a doll. Not a daughter. _Him_.

He is truly saved.

Perhaps this is why that after he had heard the history of the octopus teacher, he couldn't stomach the thought of not saving his teacher.

Because the one who has saved him deserves better. If he was given the privilege of being saved, Koro-sensei should at least get a chance.

Because he knows how it feels living with the knowledge of harming others simply with your presence. He knows the pain of loneliness and despair. The biting cold of a cruel world. Of being used and then discarded aside.

He promised to use his abilities as an assassin to protect his family and his important people. It's time to make use of his promise.

 _I'll save you just like you saved me, Koro-sensei._

* * *

 **Wrote this at 1 A.M. I have absolutely no idea what was going thorough my head. Hopefully it made sense to you. Couldn't update it earlier since there were problems with the internet.**

 **this fandom really needs more non-romance stories.**


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